Wikivoyage talk:Recent changes help

Recent changes by characters-per-edit
Swept in from the pub:

Just an idea for an option I think would be handy on the Recent Changes page. I've gradually become suspicious of single edits of over about 1000 characters because I often find them to be copyright violations. The higher the edit character count, the more likely this becomes; single edits of +10,000 are highly suspicious and should be checked thoroughly. Conversely, if someone removes several thousand characters from a page, I find that to be suspect as well-- it could be just vandalism or it could be a business owner stripping competition from an article, etc. I'd like to see an additional filter on the Recent Changes page that would make these easier to spot by allowing you to hide edits under certain increments, maybe 1000, 2000, 5000, 10000, or something similar. I think it would be especially helpful on some other language editions where there aren't such a large number of admins. I don't have the know-how to implement such a thing, but I'm sure someone around here does. Please comment! (WT-en) Texugo 00:59, 11 January 2008 (EST)


 * Good idea. (WT-en) Pashley 18:11, 26 June 2008 (EDT)

What does this thing mean?
Swept in from the Pub:

What does the number in brackets on RECENT CHANGES mean? like (diff) (hist). . Talk:Edmonton‎; 16:48. . (+259) . . Edmontonenthusiast (Talk | contribs) (→I was wondering about maps...Yeah, again crazy me... - ) See the bolded!(WT-en) Edmontonenthusiast 12:50, 26 October 2008 (EDT)


 * It means that that many characters (letters) have been added to the article in that edit. Negative numbers mean they've been deleted.  And bold is used to highlight large changes in either directions. (WT-en) Jpatokal 17:42, 26 October 2008 (EDT)
 * Thanks, mate:)! (WT-en) Edmontonenthusiast 18:34, 26 October 2008 (EDT)

Do we need this page?
We have a few pages that basically just document Mediawiki functionality - this one, Watchlist help, etc. That made more sense when we weren't always using the latest Mediawiki version, but since we're now guaranteed to be using the latest would it make more sense to just make these pages soft redirects to the corresponding Mediawiki help pages? Doing so would have two significant benefits: As an example, this page would redirect to mw:Help:Tracking changes and Watchlist help would redirect to mw:Help:Watchlist, and any other pages that document Mediawiki functionality (and do not contain any Wikivoyage-specific info) could also be redirected. -- Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 15:52, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It would ensure that we are not providing help information that is out-of-date (which would confuse the users most in need of help).
 * It would save us from having to update the pages - we already have enough documentation pages that suffer from lack of attention.
 * Absolutely. The MW pages are almost certainly going to be more up-to-date. They can all be linked from Software features. -Peter Talk 16:34, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I've followed up with a broader discussion at Travellers' pub. -- Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 21:37, 1 June 2013 (UTC)